Colias nilgiriensis
Encyclopedia
The Nilgiri Clouded Yellow is a small butterfly
native to southern India
. It belongs to the family
Pieridae
, wherein it is a member of the "yellows and sulfurs" subfamily Coliadinae
.
There is some dispute whether it ought to be included in the Eastern Pale Clouded Yellow (C. erate
) as a subspecies
Colias erate nilagiriensis, or treated as a distinct species Colias nilagiriensis.
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
native to southern India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. It belongs to the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Pieridae
Pieridae
The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing approximately 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and Asia. Most pierid butterflies are white, yellow or orange in coloration, often with black spots...
, wherein it is a member of the "yellows and sulfurs" subfamily Coliadinae
Coliadinae
Coliadinae, the sulfurs, sulphurs, or yellows, are a subfamily of butterflies with about 300 described species.There are 36 species in North America, where they range from Mexico to northern Canada...
.
There is some dispute whether it ought to be included in the Eastern Pale Clouded Yellow (C. erate
Colias erate
The Eastern Pale Clouded Yellow is a butterfly in the Pieridae family. It is found from South-eastern Europe, through Turkey over Central Asia up to Japan and Taiwan. South, its range stretches to Somalia and Ethiopia....
) as a subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
Colias erate nilagiriensis, or treated as a distinct species Colias nilagiriensis.